Jehovah's Witnesses pick Birmingham over Huntsville

Jehovah's Witnesses will move their three summer meetings from Huntsville to Birmingham next year, ending for now a 12-year string of meetings that brought nearly $9 million a year in business to local hotels and restaurants.

A dispute over parking has ended the annual meetings, at least for 2009, as the city's largest single convention booking, bringing 6,000 people to town each of the three weekends.

Bill Scott, the manager of the Sheraton Four Points hotel, emerged from a 90-minute meeting of hotel executives on the issue Tuesday to call it, "from my standpoint, a major loss. I don't have anything to replace it."

Local convention bookers, however, say the sessions, although the largest single convention, represent only a 3 percent loss in total delegates visiting the city.